At the bottom of the abyss, Valerius lay broken, buried beneath shattered stone and bleeding out. His body was torn. His breath, faint. Every heartbeat was a struggle.
Then—
a voice echoed in his mind.
Familiar. Gentle. Commanding.
"Valerius," Yelleen said, her voice soft yet piercing, "there's something near you. You have to reach it—even if you have to crawl. You must."
A surge of energy pulsed through his eyes. Night vision activated.
The shadows peeled back.
High above, Pungence stood silently upon the air, arms crossed, gazing down into the abyss. He watched the boy with unreadable eyes.
Valerius trembled, body racked with agony, but he turned himself over.
One arm. Then another.
And he crawled.
"Think of your brother… your sister," Yelleen whispered, fire laced beneath her words.
"You cannot die here, Valerius."
His fingers scraped against the rock.
Every movement was pain incarnate.
Blood pooled from his mouth. Tears streamed from his eyes.
Pungence felt the shift—a will to live blazing up through the darkness.
A hole in his stomach… and he's still moving? Pungence thought, eyes narrowing.
Ahead, a spiked mountain of jagged stone, rising over a hundred metres into the darkness. Its edges shimmered with tiny blades, unforgiving and sharp.
And still—Valerius crawled toward it.
He tried to ascend.
He slipped.
His limbs failed him.
The pain was too much.
His body gave out.
"VALERIUS!" Yelleen's voice thundered through his mind, shaking his soul.
"This is your story! Don't you dare let it end here!"
"Move those damned hands of yours! Don't you want to see your brother again? Your sister? Your mother?"
"How crushed would they be, knowing you died… because you didn't fight hard enough to live?"
Pungence, far above, watched in silence as Valerius reached the base of the stone tower.
He frowned.
"There's no way… He'll never climb that. Not in this state."
Then—Valerius began to climb.
Pungence's eyes widened.
"What?"
The boy dragged himself up the bladed cliff, every spike tearing into his flesh, ripping through his exposed skin, his only protection was his armour. Which barely held together. His hands were a mess of blood. But still—he climbed.
And Pungence…
smiled.
"This boy…" he murmured, "He's something else."
"To have this much willpower… Marvellous. Truly marvellous."
Above, atop the jagged spire, sat a small orb—golden, glowing faintly.
Yelleen's voice surged once more:
"What did your mother tell you?"
"Don't ever let anyone walk all over you."
"Ever since you arrived here… that's exactly what's been happening."
"This is the first step in ending that."
Valerius hesitated, breath faltering.
"COME ON, VALERIUS!"
"Just a little more—
Reach out!"
"Show me you are your father's son!"
Valerius roared—a scream born of agony and defiance—and lunged upward, stretching his torn arm toward the orb.
He touched it.
And in that moment, far away—across dimensions—others felt it.
Beings. Forces.
---
Valerius collapsed.
The golden orb melted through his hand—through flesh, muscle, bone.
It carved a path through his arm, sliding through muscle fibre and nerve until it reached his chest.
It entered his heart.
The golden shell dissolved.
Veins attached.
A white, luminous fluid surged from the orb, seeping into his bloodstream.
His heart thumped—once.
Twice.
Then it roared to life.
The liquid surged through him—reviving. Rebuilding. Reclaiming.
The Kingdom seed had found its own owner.
---
Pungence laughed, deep and rich.
"To think… a mere child is capable of this."
"Such willpower. It seems this generation isn't lost after all."
He dropped, landing softly.
Dust curled around his boots as he approached.
"This is your lucky day, boy," he muttered, approaching the fallen youth.
"Well… it's also my lucky day."
"Finding people of your calibre is extremely rare."
He bent down, reaching for Valerius—
But the boy was gone.
Vanished.
Pungence blinked.
He was stunned.
He had nothing to say.
---
King Gozay sat alone on a shattered rock, head bowed, the weight of grief pressed into his shoulders like a mountain.
Around him lay the silent echoes of the fallen.
His army—gone.
Not even bodies remained to carry home.
Only dust, and memory.
His daughter approached carefully, her voice low.
"Father… are you okay?"
He lifted his head slowly, his expression carved from sorrow.
"I'm not, Eli," he said, his voice deep and raw. "I have lost all my soldiers—none remain, not even their bodies, to be returned to the grieving hands of their kin. And three of my Spellbounds have fallen..."
He exhaled—slow and hollow.
Then he reached out, placing a hand around Eliana's waist, and drew her close. With a simple flex of magic, he lifted them both into the air.
He turned to the four surviving Spellbounds—Jeron, Maria, Maloi, and Heinzel—and spoke with quiet finality.
"We depart."
He pointed to the vast tear in the ruin's ceiling, the opening Pungence had forged.
"Through there."
And then—
everything blurred.
---
It began with a streak.
A man leapt from thin air, zig-zagging between wind currents like a living missile.
In the span of a heartbeat—he was there.
And then—
CRACK.
Gozay's head snapped sideways, his body launched like a broken statue.
The punch was devastating—beyond anything a mage should endure.
At the same time, the man's other arm snatched Eliana and hurled her away with pinpoint precision.
The Elf King flew through the air, his body crashing into the ground, tumbling, cratering, skidding across stone for several kilometres.
The force of the impact tore the wind apart.
The Spellbounds were blown back, thrown off their feet, hurled into crags and broken walls like leaves in a storm.
They didn't even see what hit them.
Eliana slammed into the ground, dazed—air knocked from her lungs.
Before Gozay could rise, before his eyes could refocus, the man descended again—
knee-first—
and struck the King like a meteor.
The terrain exploded.
A five-kilometre-wide crater split open beneath them, swallowing rubble, flame, and dust.
The attacker knelt atop Gozay's chest, pinning him, unmoving.
His skin was a pale beige.
His ears, short and sharp.
His hair, wild and brown like dry bark in flame.
But his eyes—his eyes gleamed with controlled, lethal precision.
He yelled—not in rage, but with command, and the power in his voice travelled ten kilometres across the ruin like a shockwave of thunder:
"I've got him pinned. Take the girl!"
---
From the darkness, three figures emerged—each sprinting with terrifying speed and purpose.
Aurellians.
They moved like trained predators—each gliding across the air as if the world itself bent to their path.
One of them leapt high, landing in front of Eliana before she could rise.
He snatched her into his arms and blurred into motion, running across the air itself, his feet stepping on air like invisible platforms.
Eliana screamed.
She summoned wind—
Launched icy blasts—
Even called forth her wooden guardian.
But the Aurellian weaved through her spells like water slipping between fingers.
And then they were gone.
Vanished into the ruin's sky.
---
The others remained frozen in horror.
Jeron gritted his teeth.
Maria's aura surged in rage.
Maloi clenched her fists until frost bled from her palms.
Heinzel stared, his eyes trembling—not in fear, but disbelief.
Gozay groaned beneath the attacker's weight, still pinned in the massive crater.
Eliana had been taken.
Just like that.
The war had come.
And they had not been ready.
---
The four surviving Spellbounds heard the voice.
And then—they saw them.
Two Aurellians, charging forward like bolts of wrath. Their movements were precise. Their intent—clear.
Jeron's eyes narrowed. He raised his arms, and twin blades of wind spiraled to life in his hands.
He vanished in a gust.
Maria stomped the ground—jagged walls of stone erupted around her in a dome of defense.
Maloi, poised and cold as ever, extended her arms—ice bloomed from her palms, blooming into sharp petals of frost that glistened like death.
And Heinzel—silent, deadly—raised a single finger.
The sky split.
Swords rained down.
A storm of steel. A symphony of violence.
The battlefield exploded.
---
The two Aurellians broke formation, darting toward the Spellbounds like hunting hounds unleashed.
Steel howled.
Wind shrieked.
Ice clashed with fire.
Jeron and Maria confronted one Aurellian together, moving like a single entity—wind and stone intertwined. Jeron's blades cut arcs through the air, slicing with a speed that distorted sound itself. Maria crouched low and slammed her fists into the ground.
Two colossal slabs of stone, each eighty metres tall, rose and slammed together—a crushing vice aimed at their foe.
But the Aurellian broke through them like they were paper.
He leapt.
Faster than thought, he was before Maria—
She threw up fifteen layered shields, stone and magical energy woven in tandem.
They shattered like glass.
His punch struck her directly in the gut.
Her body shield failed. His fist pierced seven centimetres into her flesh.
She screamed, launched backwards like a comet, cratering the ground for kilometres.
The Aurellian didn't pause.
He vanished—then reappeared above Jeron, smashing him headfirst into the ground.
A crater formed—a hundred metres wide.
The shockwave tore through the field. Wind slammed into Gustein and Anuel, nearly knocking them over.
The attacker stood tall.
Light beige skin. Short, pointed ears. Wild brown hair. Eyes that glowed with feral certainty.
But Maria was not finished.
---
From beneath the rubble, she erupted—a burst of magic exploding around her.
She wasn't screaming—she was radiating fury.
Her body launched forward at sonic speed, the ground beneath her rising with her, gravitating to her entire body.
Stone. Soil. Metal.
All were drawn to her.
In seconds, she became a moving mountain, completely encased in a spinning drill of debris the size of a building.
It spun—violently, roaring like a hurricane.
Then—it crystallised.
Diamond.
A diamond drill, the size of a siege engine, hurled through the air like a divine hammer.
The Aurellian turned, sensing it only at the last second. He raised a single hand—and caught the tip.
The ground shattered beneath him.
Cracks webbed across the terrain. His boots sank into the stone.
He held the drill, but it pushed deeper. His hands bled, the force driving him backward inch by inch.
And then—Jeron rose.
Jeron floated behind him, blood trickling down his cheek. He raised one hand.
The wind went silent.
A compressed blade of wind formed—twelve kilometres long—dense, radiant, sharp enough to slice through thought itself.
Even the air recoiled from it.
Far away, Gustein saw the blade in the air and stood in horror.
"Oh shit…" He got up and ran.
Anuel grabbed Ziraiah and Eryndor.
"Lisa. Sumshus. Take Jeriana.—go! Now!"
They fled through the ruin, hiding behind shattered walls as the wind howled like a dying god.
---
Jeron's voice thundered:
"You think you can kidnap our princess and get away with it?"
"I've already had a bad day."
He brought his hand down.
So did the blade.
The Aurellian looked up, drill still in his hand, and one word left his lips:
"…Fuck."
The wind blade descended like divine wrath.
At the exact moment—Maria's diamond drill slammed into the Aurellian with full force.
The terrain detonated.
The impact carved a twelve-kilometre trench into the ruin's surface. Wind and diamond howled through the land like twin cataclysms.
When the dust cleared—
The Aurellian lay on the ground.
Both arms gone.
A deep, smoking slash carved across his torso, blood pouring like a river.
Jeron and Maria stood above him—
Eyes burning.
Auras raging.
Ignirs mightiest warriors.
---
At the same time the Aurellian vanished with Eliana, Maloi and Heinzel took flight, their auras flaring, fury in their eyes.
They didn't get far.
A blur cut through the air—a foot slammed into their chests, knocking them from the sky.
They crashed into the ground with bone-breaking force.
Heinzel was the first to rise.
But before he could fully stand, a knee crashed into his face.
His teeth shattered.
His body was launched like a missile, tumbling through crags and cliffs for kilometres. Blood trailed behind him in a streak of red.
Maloi barely managed to lift her head before a fist crashed into her face, driving her back into the ground. The ground shattered beneath her as her body carved a fifty-metre-wide crater into the ruin floor.
The man didn't stop.
He appeared above her and punched again. And again. And again.
Maloi screamed, throwing up a magical shield—but it cracked instantly under the onslaught. Her body trembled as blood poured from her lips. Every blow was like thunder.
The man raised his fist one last time—
And then, Maloi screamed.
Magic exploded from her.
Ice erupted outward, a primal storm of raw cold detonating in every direction.
The temperature plummeted.
In an instant, everything within a four-kilometre radius froze solid.
The Aurellian attacker—encased in pure ice.
Maloi dropped to one knee, gasping. Frost clung to her skin, her body steaming with cold. She looked up at the frozen figure, eyes burning.
And then—
The man's eyes moved.
They locked onto hers from behind the ice.
A memory rose in her mind: Dreados, breaking through her magic like it was nothing.
The ice shattered.
The man stepped forward, frost peeling from his skin, his smile sharp and unnatural.
He drew back his fist to strike—
But from above, a shadow fell.
Heinzel roared, bringing down a sword the size of a building, a colossal blade that lit the air with glowing runes.
It struck the Aurellian square on the head.
The ground cratered 800 metres deep.
Maloi was blown off her feet by the shockwave.
When the dust cleared—
The man was still standing.
Blood trickled down his forehead.
He grinned.
Then, casually, he grabbed the massive sword with one hand, and with his other fist—
shattered it.
Heinzel stared in disbelief.
The man's strength wasn't just unnatural—it was something else entirely.
Then ice burst from the ground, a spear of frozen vengeance rising beneath the man's feet. He dodged, but another followed. Then another. Everywhere he landed, another icicle rose.
Maloi had entered a trance. Her magic hunted him.
The Aurellian unsheathed his sword.
He slashed outward.
The entire field shattered.
Ice cracked.
Stone split.
The terrain trembled under the weight of his blow.
Then he slashed again—vertically, sending a curved blade of force hurling toward Maloi.
She raised an ice shield.
The wave hit.
She was sent flying, crashing hard into the ruined field, her shield splintered like glass.
The Aurellian leapt high into the air, no words spoken.
He raised his sword, about to bring it down on Maloi—
But Heinzel was already there.
Another colossal blade formed in the sky—this time, even larger.
It collided with the man in midair, hurling him sideways, smashing him into rock, walls, and finally the ground in a thunderous crash.
Dust spiraled. Silence followed.
Then—Heinzel stepped forward.
No longer holding back.
He summoned two normal sized swords, one in each hand. These were different. Not silver. Not glowing.
Black. Entirely black.
His voice was calm.
"Muscle augmentation."
His arms swelled, his body bulking with magical might.
"Accelerated perception."
The world slowed. Every flicker of movement, clear.
"Indomitable defence."
His skin shimmered. His body hardened like stone.
He raised both blades.
For the first time in his life, he was ready to fight to the death.
Maloi landed beside him, panting but steady. Her hair billowed in the frost. The white skirt over her trousers flared in the blizzard swirling around her.
"I'm with you, Heinzel," she said.
She raised her hands.
"Muscle augmentation. Accelerated perception. Indomitable defence."
The air chilled further. Her fingers curled—two swords of pure white frost formed in her grip.
Maloi exhaled. Her voice was low.
"Let's get rid of this bastard."
A pause.
"Always kidnapping Elves. This is why I hate Aurellians."
Heinzel's eyes narrowed, locked on their target.
"That man has no mana."
Maloi replied without hesitation.
"I know. He's like him…
That Elf."
And then they advanced.
Together.
—
To Be Continued...